Hero
by orangekites
Summary: Heroes make sacrifices. We all know that. But Leafpelt takes it to another level- the sacrifices of others for the greater good. But does this still count as heroism at all? Does taking justice into your own paws blur the lines between right and wrong? Nothing is black and white, but the most gray of them all is the definition of a hero.


She didn't mean to. She never meant to. It just kind of happened.

Leafpelt gazed upon the lifeless body stretched out in front of her, a scream forever frozen onto the tabby tom's face. There was the guilt, of course. There was always the guilt after a kill. And the shame, disappointment, _anger_ that she had lost control again. And maybe the exhilaration of a kill and the fleeting joy that she had helped eliminate somebody dangerous, somebody _bad,_ from ThunderClan.

Her whiskers twitched.

And of course, the internal monologue, a constant battle in her head.

 _He deserved to die. He deserved to be killed._

 _A warrior! He was a warrior of your clan! You monster!_

 _He had it coming to him._

Leafpelt shook her head and ignored the thoughts, instead opting for her usual clean-up routine: dragging the corpse to the empty hollow where foxes were known to live (and let them take care of the mess, of course, and if the body still wasn't gone after three days, she would toss it into the river herself), washing her bloody claws and teeth, and covering all traces of her presence with strong-smelling herbs, fox-scent, and leaves.

It was never a pretty operation or a pretty kill. In fact, this one might have been the worst yet- a slow, drawn-out death that involved the newly-dead Pinetuft begging for mercy and several messy rips to the stomach and throat- but at least it was justified. The week before, Leafpelt had witnessed him clawing his mate over the ears and roughly tossing his kits against the floor, seemingly upset about something. Of course, she couldn't have toms running around abusing their family. Pinetuft had to go. Killing him was an act of mercy towards his family. She was practically a hero for doing so.

 _It's disgusting, the things some cats like Pinetuft do these days._

She headed back for the camp.

* * *

A whole moon passed without another incident, but then Leafpelt saw Thrushtail sneaking extra prey from the fresh-kill pile- and in the middle of leaf-bare, no less! When kits and elders alike were starving! The very thought of it made the tortoiseshell bristle with rage, and in fact she was so busy fuming that she missed the brown tom slipping into the nursery with the extra squirrels to where his mate and kits currently were.

She killed him after two days of agitated pacing and deciding. And there was less guilt this time. And more excitement. And blood. A hero.

The foxes ate him quickly.

* * *

An apprentice this time, Leafpelt had noted sorrowfully (though not too sorrowfully), but nonetheless, she was breaking the Warrior Code. Petalpaw would be her fifth kill. And of course, ThunderClan had noticed the mysterious disappearances of its cats, but had swiftly pinned the blame upon foxes, twolegs, neighboring clans- anything except for the truth. Denial at its finest.

Petalpaw went quickly. Leafpelt did not want young cats to suffer, but she had seen her nuzzling a RiverClan cat- _fishbreaths, of all things!_ \- at a Gathering, and there was no choice. It was a swift blow to the throat, no hesitation.

Leafpelt found that it was getting easier and easier to kill (not _kill_ , she reminded herself, simply weeding out a few bad seeds to make her clan stronger) and that her requirements for being eliminated in such a way were getting looser and looser. She felt a greater rush than ever. Of course, the rush was due _entirely_ to her serving her clan to the fullest, and not at all because of the means by which she was achieving this. She had noticed that she was feeling less disgust, less guilt, less shame, but certainly it was because these cats deserved to die. She was taking out the weak roots, which was an act of heroism in and of itself.

And okay, maybe, just a tiny tiny bit, she enjoyed the look on the traitors' faces when she pinned them down and swiped a claw across their throat (or in the case of the _real_ mange-pelts, a slow and careful slicing up and down their belly). And maybe she liked being in control of somebody else's life for once.

But of course, it was mostly in her head. And of course, she was mostly a hero.

* * *

Reckless. Leafpelt was getting more reckless. Two kills in ten days? She usually didn't perpetrate more than one a moon, but Berryclaw and Flamenose were hunting across the border. And the clan was paranoid. Everybody was on edge. Nobody trusted each other anymore, and fights and outbursts were more and more common, although most cats cowered in their dens all day, not even daring to say a word to anyone else. Owlstar refused to talk to anybody any more and had stationed a permanent guard around the camp.

In part, Leafpelt felt a little hurt. Didn't they see? Didn't they realize? She was only pulling weeds. ThunderClan should have been stronger and closer together than ever, now that the thieves and abusers and free-loaders were gone. But instead, the clan was being driven apart- and for no good reason at all! The good warriors had nothing to fear. Why should they? She only took out the ones that needed to be dealt with. They should be praising her, showering her with gifts for reinforcing the clan, should be lauding her as a hero. But it seemed like they didn't recognize that.

* * *

Leafpelt saw them- another dirty cross-clan pair. She watched them from afar, amber eyes glinting in the moonlight as the two cats purred and rubbed up against each other on the border. She could kill both. She _would_ kill both. Leafpelt was fairly certain that WindClan would thank her for taking out one of their traitors as well. She steadied herself, ready to pounce, when the cat from ThunderClan turned its head.

 _Owlstar?_

No. It couldn't be. All of a sudden Leafpelt felt dizzy and light-headed and her heart beat faster. _No! Our leader is a code-breaker!_

She couldn't just barge in now. She couldn't kill her own leader! Then where would that leave ThunderClan?

 _With a traitorous leader!_

 _Priorities, Leafpelt,_ she reminded herself, stilling her spiking fur and shaky breaths. _Priorities. What harm is he doing really? Besides desecrating our sacred Warrior Code?_

She was starting to feel a little sick to the stomach. Owlstar rubbed against the WindClan cat, who by now she could identify as the young warrior Harewhisker.

Leafpelt told herself to back away and pretend she didn't see them, but it seemed like her claws were fastened to the ground, fused to the dirt floor by some unknown force. Harewhisker purred louder. She couldn't look away.

And that was the moment, legs taking off from the ground, claws outstretched, teeth bared, that was the moment that she realized that maybe she liked doing this dirty business more than she cared to admit. And as her claws gripped her leader's throat, legs pummeling his head against the ground, the thought occurred to her that maybe her form of justice wasn't quite as noble as she had thought it was. And as her leader lay limp and she turned on Harewhisker, she started to reconsider things.

And maybe she realized that she wasn't the hero after all.


End file.
